by John Dickie
Anyone who wants to find out about the history of organised crime in Calabria must start with Enzo Ciconte’s pioneering book ’Ndrangheta dall’Unità a oggi (Rome-Bari, 1992). As well as drawing the main outlines of ’ndrangheta history, Ciconte also brought together for the first time a vast quantity of evidence from the Archivio di Stato di Catanzaro. My approach has been to return to the same documentation but to add a great deal of previously unstudied or understudied material from the Archivio di Stato di Reggio Calabria and the press that I think allows us to reach firmer and clearer conclusions on the early ’ndrangheta than Ciconte felt able to. Ciconte also wrote the first comparative history of the three mafias: Storia criminale. La resistibile ascesa di mafia, ’ndrangheta e camorra dall’Ottocento ai giorni nostri (Soveria Mannelli, 2008). His approach is very distinctive—it is thematic rather than chronological—but it has given me a great many leads in preparing Blood Brotherhoods.
In its rigour and clarity, Francesco Barbagallo’s Storia della camorra (Rome-Bari, 2010) stands head and shoulders above all previous attempts to survey the history of organised crime since the nineteenth century in Campania. His earlier books, Napoli fine Novecento. Politici, camorristi, imprenditori (Turin, 1997) and Il potere della camorra (1973–1998) (Turin, 1999) remain fundamental for the dramatic growth of the camorra in the late twentieth century. I have drawn on them repeatedly. Mention must also be made of Isaia Sales’s influential collection of historical essays, La camorra le camorre (2nd edn, Rome, 1993), from which I have learned a great deal. P. Monzini, Gruppi criminali a Napoli e a Marsiglia. La delinquenza organizzata nella storia di due città (1820–1990) (Rome, 1999), provided a stimulating precedent for a comparative approach, and insights into various moments of camorra history.
The early phases of the mafias’ history, from their origins until the fall of Fascism, are the least well known outside specialist circles. I have learned a great deal from scholars working specifically on this period. In the 1980s Marcella Marmo was among the pioneers of the new history of organised crime in Italy, and she is still the authority on the camorra from its origins to the Cuocolo trial. Her many essays should be the first items on any reading list about the camorra. Accordingly, I have drawn on them heavily and cited them in the appropriate chapters below. For now it is worth highlighting three essays that offer a broad survey of the Neapolitan Honoured Society: M. Marmo, ‘Tra le carceri e il mercato. Spazi e modelli storici del fenomeno camorrista’, in P. Macry and P. Villani (eds), La Campania, part of Storia d’Italia. Le regioni dall’Unità a oggi (Turin, 1990); M. Marmo, ‘La camorra dell’Ottocento: il fenomeno e i suoi confini’, in A. Musi (ed.), Dimenticare Croce? Studi e orientamenti di storia del Mezzogiorno (Naples, 1991); M. Marmo, ‘La città camorrista e i suoi confini: dall’Unità al processo Cuocolo’, in G. Gribaudi (ed.), Traffici criminali. Camorra, mafie e reti internazionali dell’illegalità (Turin, 2009). This third essay makes some important observations about women in the camorra.
Marmo’s essay on honour is also essential on one of the key themes that run through organised crime history: M. Marmo, ‘L’onore dei violenti, l’onore delle vittime. Un’estorsione camorrista del 1862 a Napoli’, in G. Fiume (ed.), Onore e storia nelle società mediterranee, (Palermo, 1989).
The ’ndrangheta is the least known and least studied of the three major criminal organisations. And although there has been a recent wave of new publications on the ’ndrangheta today, historical research remains very rare indeed. For a long time, Gaetano Cingari was the only professional historian who took an interest in the Calabrian mafia. I have drawn on the important pages in his Storia della Calabria dall’Unità a oggi (Rome-Bari, 1983), Reggio Calabria (Rome-Bari, 1988), and of course on his essay on the ‘brigand’ Musolino: ‘Tra brigantaggio e “picciotteria”: Giuseppe Musolino’, in G. Cingari, Brigantaggio, proprietari e contadini nel Sud (Reggio Calabria, 1976). Two other important contributions to the early history of the ’ndrangheta deserve mention. The first is by a magistrate, Saverio Mannino: ‘Criminalità nuova in una società in trasformazione. Il Novecento e i tempi attuali’, in A. Placanica (ed.), La Calabria moderna e contemporanea (Rome, 1997). Mannino’s richly documented essay is particularly insightful on the Fascist era. The second contribution, just as richly documented, but with a focus on the pre-Fascist period, is by journalist and campaigner, Antonio Nicaso: Alle origini della ’ndrangheta. La picciotteria (Soveria Mannelli, 1990).
Several scholars contributed to the foundation of a new school of history-writing on the Sicilian mafia in the 1980s—they are the people I cited in the bibliography to my Cosa Nostra. Blood Brotherhoods tries to apply the many lessons I absorbed from those historians to new material, and to the other criminal organisations. So if space prevents me from citing them and their works all over again here, my debt to them is nonetheless profound. There are some more recent works that do stand out, however. It is an indicator of the quality of Salvatore Lupo’s research that newly discovered material—like the documentation from Ermanno Sangiorgi’s career that I found in the Archivio Centrale dello Stato—all too often confirms Lupo’s fundamental insights. His book-length interview with Gaetano Savatteri, Potere criminale. Intervista sulla storia della mafia (Rome-Bari, 2010), is, among many other things, a persuasive argument for the importance of studying the mafia with the tools of the historian. Lupo it was who unearthed the 1938 report by the Royal General Inspectorate for Public Security for Sicily that I have used here. Two researchers working with Lupo, Manoela Patti and Vittorio Coco have analysed the report thoroughly and gone on to make huge advances in the understanding of the mafia under Fascism. Important essays by them, and by other scholars, are collected in a special issue of the journal Meridiana. Rivista di storia e scienze sociali, ‘Mafia e fascismo’ (63, 2008). The Inspectorate’s is published in V. Coco and M. Patti, Relazioni mafiose. La mafia ai tempi del fascismo (Rome, 2010). Chief of Police Ermanno Sangiorgi’s extraordinarily insightful report into the mafia at the turn of the twentieth century—another discovery of Lupo’s—is also now available in print: S. Lupo, Il tenebroso sodalizio. La mafia d’inizio novecento nel rapporto Sangiorgi (Rome, 2010). (The book also includes my short biography of Sangiorgi, which covers elements I did not find space for here.)
There is now a good body of scholarly work on the role that women and family relations play in mafia life, although it is almost all about the contemporary period. I hope that my study, whether the conclusions it draws are correct or not, at least shows that the comparative historical study of women and the mafia can yield insights about what Alessandra Dino has called the ‘submerged centrality’ of women in the underworld. The following four studies are recommended as essential starting points:
>A. Dino and T. Principato, Mafia donna. Le vestali del sacro e dell’onore, Palermo, 1997.
>A. Dino, Mutazioni. Etnografia del mondo di Cosa Nostra, Palermo, 2002. Remarkable, amongst many other reasons, because it shows how much strategic thinking goes into the management of families within the Sicilian mafia.
>O. Ingrascì, Donne d’onore. Storie di mafia al femminile, Milan, 2007.
>R. Siebert, Le donne. La mafia, Milan, 1994.
All translations from the sources listed in the following pages are my own unless stated.
I have used the following abbreviations:
>ACS = Archivio Centrale dello Stato.
>ASC = Archivio di Stato di Catanzaro.
>ASRC = Archivio di Stato di Reggio Calabria.
>ASN = Archivio di Stato di Napoli.
>ASPA = Archivio di Stato di Palermo.
>Documentazione antimafia = Senato della Repubblica, Documentazione allegata alla relazione conclusive della Commissione parlamentare d’inchiesta sul fenomeno della mafia in Sicilia.
>Istruttoria Maxi = Falcone and Borsellino’s history making the prosecution case for the maxi-trial against Cosa Nostra, Ordinanza-sentenza contro Abbate Giovanni + 706.
>Istruttoria Stajano = part
of the above was published as C. Stajano (ed.), Mafia: l’atto d’accusa dei giudici di Palermo (Rome, 1986).
>Maxiprocesso = 40,000 pages of other material from the maxi-trial can now be viewed online thanks to the Fondazione Falcone, www.fondazionefalcone.org.
>Processo Olimpia = Procura della Repubblica di Reggio Calabria, Direzione Distrettuale Antimafia, Procedimento penale n.46/93 r.g.n.r. D.D.A. a carico di CONDELLO PASQUALE ed altri. ‘Processo Olimpia’ (this vast trial is the fundamental document for reconstructing the history of the ’ndrangheta from the late sixties onwards).
SOURCES CONSULTED
Preface to the US Edition
S. Lupo, Quando la mafia trovò l’America. Storia di un intreccio intercontinentale, 1888–2008, Turin, 2008. Explains how the name ‘Cosa Nostra’ took hold among mafiosi both in Sicily and the United States following Joe Valachi’s testimony to the McClellan committee in 1963.
L. Malafarina, Il codice della ’ndrangheta, Reggio Calabria, 1978. There is no canonical form of the legend of the three Spanish knights: it seems never to be reproduced in the same form twice in ’ndrangheta mythology. References to it in ’ndrangheta rituals are reproduced in many sources including Malafarina.
P. Natella, La parola ‘mafia’, Florence, 2002. Suggests the derivation of Carcagnosso from calcagna.
To my knowledge the name ’ndrangheta or ’ndranghita does not make a consistent public appearance before press coverage of the so-called ‘Marzano operation’ in the autumn of 1955. One can see it surfacing, in tentative inverted commas, in ‘Il Ministro Tambroni e il sottosegretario Capua in disaccordo nel valutare la situazione esistente nelle province calabresi’, L’Unità, 10/9/1955; or ‘Latitanti che si costituiscono e altri che vengono arrestati’, Il Mattino, 14/9/1955. The man who seems likely to have been responsible for giving the name a broad currency was Corrado Alvaro, with his article ‘La fibbia’, Corriere della Sera, 17/9/1955.
Introduction: Blood brothers
Relazione annuale della Commissione parlamentare d’inchiesta sul fenomeno della criminalità organizzata mafiosa o similare. ’ndrangheta. Relatore On. Francesco Forgione, 2008. On the Duisburg massacre and the ’ndrangheta’s international reach. Can be downloaded from: http://www.camera.it/_dati/leg15/lavori/documentiparlamentari/indiceetesti/023/005/intero.pdf.
Procura della Repubblica Presso il Tribunale di Reggio Calabria, Direzione Distrettuale Antimafia, Decreto di Fermo di indiziato di delitto—artt. 384 e segg. c.p.p. Agostino Anna Maria + 155. I have drawn on this document, which is better known as ‘Operazione Crimine’, for an up-to-date insight into the ’ndrangheta’s structure based on the most recent investigations.
F. Barbagallo, Storia della camorra, Rome-Bari, 2010. Another very good source on the contemporary situation.
G. Gribaudi, ‘Guappi, camorristi, killer. Interpretazioni letterarie, immagini sociali, e storie giudiziarie’, in Donne, uomini, famiglie, Naples, 1999. Also the source for my remarks on the guappi after the demise of the Neapolitan Honoured Society.
G. Gribaudi, ‘Clan camorristi a Napoli: radicamento locale e traffici internazionali’, in G. Gribaudi (ed.), Traffici criminali. Camorra, mafie e reti internazionali dell’illegalità, Turin, 2009. An excellent short summary of the camorra today based on judicial sources. Here I owe the observation about the Honda ‘Dominator’, along with many other points, to Gribaudi’s essay.
P. Martino, Per la storia della ’ndranghita, Rome, 1988. Suggests the most plausible derivation of ’ndrina.
L. Paoli, Fratelli di mafia. Cosa Nostra e ’Ndrangheta, Bologna, 2000. A fine comparative study of the Sicilian and Calabrian organisations.
R. Saviano, Gomorra. Viaggio nell’impero economico e nel sogno di dominio della camorra, Milan, 2006. Saviano’s powerful, impassioned and enormously successful book is a shocking denunciation of camorra power today. Compared to Gribaudi and Barbagallo, however, it has the disadvantage for historians of not citing its sources. Readers who do not know Italian will be hampered by the book’s dreadful English translation.
A. Zagari, Ammazzare stanca. Autobiografia di uno ’ndranghetista pentito, Cosenza 1992.
‘Books of The Times; Journey to a Strange Land That Seems Like Home’, New York Times, 18/7/2003. On the ‘unpronounceable name’ of the ’ndrangheta.
The United States Consul General’s 2008 report on Calabria, as made public by Wikileaks, can be found at: http://racconta.repubblica.it/wikileaks-cablegate/dettaglio.php?id=08NAPLES96.
PART I: VIVA LA PATRIA!
ASN, Ministero della Polizia, Gabinetto, f. 1702, incart. 38. Ministero e Real segreteria di Stato della polizia generale, Affari di conferenze con S.M. il Re Nostro Padrone D.G. Undated report, but c. 20/10/1853. On the links between liberals and camorristi.
ASN, Ministero della Polizia, Gabinetto, f. 1648, incart. 295. Corrispondenza tra il Prefetto di polizia Farina e il Ministro Romano. On the setting up of a new police force in the summer of 1860.
ASN, Dicastero di polizia e delle luogotenenze, f. 202, inc. 4. Letter from Prefettura di Polizia signed by Filippo De Blasio to Luogotenente del Re Luigi Carlo Farini dated 22/11/1860. On the ‘perniciosissima peste della Camorra’ and on Romano’s policy of co-opting camorristi into the police.
ASN, Dicastero dell’Interno e Polizia della Luogotenenza, f. 202, incart. 112. Componimento dello stato dei camorristi in questa città . . . Trasmesso il 21/6/1861 dal questore Tajani al Dicastero di Polizia. A list of ‘gamorristi’, by city quarter, drawn up under Spaventa.
ASN, Questura di Napoli. Archivio Generale 1a serie. Archivio dei pregiudicati. Fascicoli personali (1860–1887). B. 1581, numerazione autonoma 53. Salvatore De Crescenzo. Contains De Crescenzo’s lengthy criminal record.
Foreign press sources (UK unless stated): The Times; London Daily News; Morning Chronicle.
Other sources drawn on throughout this section:
G. Machetti, ‘Cultura liberale e prassi repressiva verso la camorra a Napoli degli anni 1860–70’, in M. Marmo (ed.), Mafia e camorra: storici a confronto, Quaderni del Dipartimento di Scienze Sociali dell’Istituto Universitario Orientale, 2, 1988.
G. Machetti, ‘Camorra e criminalità popolare a Napoli (1860–1880)’, Società e Storia, 51, 1991.
G. Machetti, ‘L’impossibile ordine. Camorra e ordine pubblico a Napoli nella congiuntura unitaria’, ParoleChiave, 7–8, 1995.
M. Marmo, ‘Camorra anno zero’, Contemporanea. Rivista di storia dell’800 e del ‘900, 1999/3. Reproduces and comments on the two reports on the camorra compiled under Spaventa from ASN, Alta polizia, f. 202, f. lo 4, Luogotenenza generale del Re (Carignano), Gabinetto del Segretario Generale di Stato (Nigra) a Dicastero di Polizia, 5/4/1861.
M. Marmo, ‘I disordini della capitale’, Bollettino del Diciannovesimo Secolo, 6, 2000.
M. Marmo, ‘Quale ordine pubblico? Notizie e opinioni da Napoli tra il luglio ‘60 e la legge Pica’, in Macry, P. (ed.), Quando crolla lo Stato. Studi sull’Italia preunitaria, Naples, 2003. Among Marmo’s essays (already cited above), this one is crucial for its narrative of the events of 1860–63, which I have substantially followed here.
M. Marmo and O. Casarino, ‘“Le invincibili loro relazioni”: identificazione e controllo della Camorra napoletana nelle fonti giudiziarie di età postunitaria’, Studi Storici, 2, 1988.
M. Monnier, La camorra. Notizie storiche raccolte e documentate, Lecce, 1994 (1862). This edition has a useful introduction by Gabriella Gribaudi.
A. Scirocco, Governo e paese nel Mezzogiorno nella crisi dell’unificazione (1860–61), Milan, 1963.
1. How to extract gold from fleas
L. Agnello, ‘Castromediano, Sigismondo’, in Dizionario biografico degli Italiani, vol. 22, Rome, 1979.
P. Bourget, Sensations d’Italie. (Toscane—Ombrie—Grande-Grèce), Paris, 1891.
R. Canosa and I. Colonnello, Storia del carcere in Italia dalla fine del ‘500 all’Unità, Rome, 1984. This remarkable study traces some of the traditions of prison e
xtortionists back to the early modern era.
S. Castromediano, Carceri e galere politiche, 2 vols, Lecce, 1895.
W.E. Gladstone, ‘First Letter to the Earl of Aberdeen, on the state prosecutions of the Neapolitan government’ (1851), in Gleanings of Past Years, 1843–78, vol. IV, London, 1879.
E. Martinengo Cesaresco, ‘Sigismondo Castromediano’, in Italian Characters in the Epoch of Unification, London, 1901 (2nd edn).
F. Montuori, Lessico e camorra. Storia della parola, proposte etimologiche e termini del gergo ottocentesco, Napoli, 2008. This is the best source on the etymology of ‘camorra’ and the history of Neapolitan underworld slang more generally. Montuori argues that camorra meant ‘extortion’ or ‘extortion payment’ for many decades before we hear of the existence of a secret society called the camorra.
G. Neppi Modona, ‘Carcere e società civile’ in Storia d’Italia, v. 5, I documenti, t. 2, Turin, 1973. Still the best starting-point for the history of the prison system in Italy.
R. Shannon, Gladstone, vol. 1, 1809–1865, London 1982.
S. Zazzera, Procida. Storia, tradizioni e immagini, Naples, 1984.
There are many sources on the prison camorra in the nineteenth century, and on the continuing influence of organised crime behind bars into the twentieth century:
M. Beltrani Scalia, Sul governo e sulla riforma delle carceri in Italia, Turin, 1867.
A. Gramsci, Lettere dal carcere, Turin, 1947. Especially the letter of 11/4/1927.
I. Invernizzi, Il carcere come scuola di rivoluzione, Turin, 1973.
J.W. Mario, ‘Il sistema penitenziario e il domicilio coatto in Italia’, I, Nuova Antologia, 1/7/1896.